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J. J. Smetanka (Saint Vincent College)
The nature of the bluing trend and steep counts in optical surveys remains a fundamental problem in understanding the evolution of galaxies. In order to provide constraints for theoretical models of galaxy evolution, a color-selected survey of galaxies was conducted (Smetanka, 1997). The spectroscopic properties of galaxies in this nearly complete survey of blue (U-V(F) < 1) galaxies to B(J) < 22 is presented here. The distribution of the equivalent width of [OII] (3727A) and composite spectra are compared to local blue galaxies. Relative oxygen abundances are estimated using emission-line strengths for galaxy up to a redshift of 0.45. Given this data, no convincing evidence is found for a large change in the spectroscopic properties of luminous, blue galaxies to redshifts of 0.45.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: smetanka@acad1.stvincent.edu